Valerie Cifuentes

Off the subject sort of, but is potty training your 5 year old "forced
learning?" I don't have any in diapers myself, but I'm trying to
understand how far some thinking goes around here.
Am I hearing that ANY parental coaxing or development is NOT unschooling
for some here?
That children must totally be left to themselves to learn effectively
and that anything that resembles "guidance" is "schoolish" and retards
the child's development?




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FILLING UP MY BOX AND TAKING UP MY TIME. THANK YOU FOR UNDERSTANDING!
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I'm A Navy Brat & Wife of HM2 Cifuentes; Active Duty Navy, & Mother of
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[email protected]

In a message dated 4/24/2002 5:28:59 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
homeschool@... writes:


> Off the subject sort of, but is potty training your 5 year old "forced
> learning?" I don't have any in diapers myself, but I'm trying to
> understand how far some thinking goes around here.
> Am I hearing that ANY parental coaxing or development is NOT unschooling
> for some here?
> That children must totally be left to themselves to learn effectively
> and that anything that resembles "guidance" is "schoolish" and retards
> the child's development?
>
>

I cringed when I read this. My son was potty-trained (by HIS choice) before
he was three. (He's three now.) My daughter, who is two, is not
potty-trained, and I am not forcing her to be so. Nor, in fact, am I
encouraging her to be so.

I DO, however, allow her to see how "cool" underwear is when Julian (my son)
is getting dressed. And he gets the "special privilege" of getting out of
bed at night to go to the potty if he needs to. And, I read to him when he
is on the potty (which is just another "perk" that makes my daughter more
curious (envious?) about the whole potty thing). She seems to be interested
. . . and often asks to sit on the potty seat if for nothing else then to
enjoy the "thrill" of flushing. (Go figure . . . maybe I thought it was neat
to flush the toilet at that age, too.)

My nephew was not potty-trained until he was almost six. I just couldn't
understand how my sister-in-law could change his diaper! At some point, I
think I would just have had to say: "Go change it yourself. And when you're
done, clean up your room."

On the other hand, I am sure that your child will learn, eventually, how and
when it is necessary to use the toilet. <g>

Kate Davis


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joanna514

--- In Unschooling-dotcom@y..., "Valerie Cifuentes" <homeschool@c...>
wrote:
>
> Off the subject sort of, but is potty training your 5 year
old "forced
> learning?" I don't have any in diapers myself, but I'm trying to
> understand how far some thinking goes around here.
> Am I hearing that ANY parental coaxing or development is NOT
unschooling
> for some here?
> That children must totally be left to themselves to learn
effectively
> and that anything that resembles "guidance" is "schoolish" and
retards
> the child's development?


I've been unschooling for over 3 years and reading about it for
almost 6, and I've never heard it described like this from
unschoolers.
Joanna

[email protected]

In a message dated 4/24/02 3:29:17 PM, homeschool@... writes:

<< Off the subject sort of, but is potty training your 5 year old "forced

learning?" >>

My kids learned to use potties because they wanted to. They were two and
three, not five.

Do you have a five year old in diapers? If so, maybe it's just a
developmental difference. Our friend Liam didn't learn to talk until he was
three. He's fine now, at 17.

If you did NOT have a five year old in diapers, was it just a
vaguely-insulting example? I purposeful exaggeration?

<<I don't have any in diapers myself, but I'm trying to

understand how far some thinking goes around here.>>

It goes this far, for me: I look at my child as the person he is. I look
right into his eyes and I feel him and I smell his head and I remember all
the things he has learned in peace and joy because he wanted to, and I have
no doubt that he can learn other, harder things. Just using Kirby for an
example: He learned, in my presence and with my encouragement (but NOT by my
"Teaching") to sit, talk, walk, run, climb, sing, read, write, to play all
kinds of computer and video games, to play complex other card games (Magic,
Pokemon, L5R, Warlord), since at this point he DOES spell, why would I stop
his life to teach him to spell? And if I had "taught him to spell" earlier,
he wouldn't have believed he could have learned it on his own. If I had
"taught him to walk" *I* might think I had taught him to walk. If I had
taught him to read, he might think he had to come back later to find out how
to write a business letter. But he knows he can learn things by observation,
experimentation, inquiry, searching out samples, etc.

Sandra

vivrh

sandradodd wrote:
It goes this far, for me: I look at my child as the person he is. I look
right into his eyes and I feel him and I smell his head and I remember all
the things he has learned in peace and joy because he wanted to, and I have
no doubt that he can learn other, harder things. Just using Kirby for an
example: He learned, in my presence and with my encouragement (but NOT by my
"Teaching") to sit, talk, walk, run, climb, sing, read, write, to play all
kinds of computer and video games, to play complex other card games (Magic,
Pokemon, L5R, Warlord), since at this point he DOES spell, why would I stop
his life to teach him to spell? And if I had "taught him to spell" earlier,
he wouldn't have believed he could have learned it on his own. If I had
"taught him to walk" *I* might think I had taught him to walk. If I had
taught him to read, he might think he had to come back later to find out how
to write a business letter. But he knows he can learn things by observation,
experimentation, inquiry, searching out samples, etc.

vivrh wrote:
Thank you Sandra for this very eloquent description of what unschooling is to "me". I try to explain it this way when I get into a discussion with my friends who also homeschool but do not unschool. It is difficult because they think I am weird and wacky for trusting that my kids WILL learn what they need to. And not that I need to cram it down their throats. I am still growing and learning how not to school them. It is a process and I am getting somewhere in that process. I feel so passionately that this is the right way for us. that it is usually hard to express to others. I have found that this list is one of the only lists that understands and feels that passion too.
God bless
Vivian
Mom to three Happy little Monkeys
Austin 10/31/93 Sarah 8/28/95 Emmalee 8/15/00
And loving wife to Randy

**If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.
-Anatole France***




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